Small Actor's
Big Performance
Lifts 'Same Moon'

Simple Story Has Heart;
In 'Fighting for Life'
Medics Are Real Heroes

See a clip from the film "Under the Same Moon." Video courtesy of Fox Searchlight.

By

Joe Morgenstern

Updated March 21, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

On an ordinary day in "Under the Same Moon," a working mother goes to work and her 9-year-old son goes to school. What removes the movie from the realm of the ordinary is geography. The mother, Rosario, is an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles, cleaning houses to support her beloved Carlito, who is living in Mexico with his fatefully ill grandmother. Fate plays a big role in this debut feature, in English and Spanish, directed by Patricia Riggen from a script by Ligiah Villalobos. The grandmother will die -- you know this from how often she coughs. The mother and child will be reunited, against seemingly...